Serial killer details Flatonia woman's slaying in 1984

For more than two decades, the killing of Melody Ann Bush has stumped Fayette County investigators.

When the 22-year-old's body first surfaced in a culvert, two miles north of Flatonia along Farm-To-Market Road 609 on March 30, 1984, authorities weren't sure what killed her.

The autopsy performed in Travis County was even more mysterious. Cause of death was listed as "acute acetone poisoning."

If someone were forced to drink enough acetone, a chemical found in everything from nail polish remover and paint remover to drain clog remover, they would likely vomit it up before a deadly amount could be ingested.

How could Melody Bush be killed by acetone when her own body's natural reaction — if she were forced to drink it — would be to throw it back up?

At first investigators turned to her husband, Robert Stewart Bush. The two had been arguing and drinking the night Bush was last seen in the Antlers Inn's Stag Bar at the back of the hotel in Flatonia.

"They were really blaming Robert when it first happened," said Robert Bush's brother, Walter. But investigators never came up with any evidence that tied Robert Bush to his wife's murder.

And so the case grew cold until 2003, when a strange break came from nearly 1,000 miles away, in Colorado Springs, Colo.

An El Paso County Sheriff's Office investigator there had talked to a man serving a life sentence for a 1991 murder of a teenager.

Surprisingly, the inmate, Robert Charles Browne, provided evidence to the Colorado investigators about a 1984 murder of a woman he met in a bar in Flatonia.

The details Browne provided were uncanny.

In an affidavit released in Colorado on Thursday, Browne wrote El Paso investigator Charlie Hess a tantalizing letter in which he first informs authorities that he's involved in Bush's murder.

"I thought long and hard about picking an incident that would not be lost among the many others," Browne wrote in a March 8, 2003, letter to Hess. "The town I chose is Flatonia, Texas ... The last I heard was that her husband was being charged with her murder."

In subsequent interviews, Browne, who authorities say has admitted to killing 49 people in nine states from 1970 to 1995, provided shocking details.

He told Hess that he met the victim in a bar at the back of a hotel that had a name like "Deer" or "Stag."

Browne talked of encountering a drunk female, who was barefoot and had just had a fight with her boyfriend or husband.

The last time anyone set eyes on Melody Bush — either on the night of March 18 or 19, 1984, she was having trouble walking. It wasn't just that she was barefoot, she had been drinking, according to the Stag Bar's then-manager, Florine Troquille.

"She recounted Ms. Bush was very intoxicated and 'spaced out' and was not wearing shoes," the Colorado affidavit states.

At this point, Browne's story begins to differ somewhat from that of the one witness in the bar, Troquille.

Troquille, who declined to be interviewed Friday, told investigators that Bush, who sometimes waitressed for her, left the bar alone.

Browne said he left the bar with Bush and went back to his hotel room.

After they had sex, Browne told Hess: "Then I used ether on her. Put her out. And then I used a ice pick on her."

"She was just actin' like a slutty, low-life woman," Browne told investigators.

Browne then returned to the Stag before returning to his hotel room.

Then he went to the bar again, the affidavit stated. Browne and a bartender went to a local truck stop for breakfast and then Browne went back to his motel room, where Bush's body was still on the bed.

He loaded her body into his van and then drove north of Flatonia and dumped the body over a bridge.

Robert Bush could not be reached for comment in his home in Colorado.

Browne told investigators he had used ether a number of times on his victims. When asked if he ever used acetone, he "replied that he never used acetone on any of his victims."

Troquille told investigators that she remembered a silk flower salesman who used to stop by the bar.

Browne told investigators in Colorado that at the time of Bush's murder, he was employed as a truck driver and delivered flowers. One of his routes took him through Flatonia.

Ric Cole, an investigator with Fayette County Sheriff's Office in La Grange, said officials have never interviewed Browne. He said the department is trying to keep specifics about Bush out of the public airwaves so that they can prove whether Browne is telling the truth.

"Mr. Browne, he gives information then he takes it back," Cole said, explaining that Browne has never made an official statement after he is a read a Miranda warning.

"In the past, he has never given information to those investigators on my case after he is read a Miranda warning."

He and other investigators on the case, including the Texas Rangers, want to see more information before deciding that Browne is indeed Bush's killer.

"Just because someone admitted that they committed a homicide, it still has to be proven that he did it," Cole said. "We don't know what we're looking at yet."